“Six hundred maidens clad in purest white
Before two streams of light from wall to wall.”[53]
CHAPTER IX.
PLUTUS.
The comedy which takes its name from the god of riches is a lively satire on the avarice and corruption which was a notorious feature of Athenian society, as it has been of other states, modern as well as ancient, when luxury and self-indulgence have created those artificial wants which are the danger of civilisation. The literal points of the satire are, of course, distinctly Athenian; but the moral is of no exclusive date or locality.
Chremylus—a country gentleman, or rather yeoman, living somewhere close to the city of Athens—has found, in his experience of life, that mere virtue and honesty are not the best policy; at any rate, not the policy which pays. He has made a visit, therefore, to the oracle of Apollo, to consult that authority as to how he shall bring up his only son; whether he shall train him in the honest and simple courses which were those of his forefathers, or have him initiated in the wicked but more profitable ways of the world, as the world is now. He is, in fact, the Strepsiades of ‘The Clouds,’ only that he is a more unwilling disciple in the new school of unrighteousness. The answer given him by the god is, that he must accost the first person he meets on quitting the temple, and persuade or compel him to accompany him home to his house.
Chremylus appears on the stage accompanied by his slave Cario,—a clever rascal, the earliest classical type which has come down to us of the Davus with whom we become so familiar in Roman comedy, and the Leporello and Scapin, and their numerous progeny of lying valets and sharp servants, impudent but useful, who occupy the modern stage. They have encountered the stranger, and are following him; he is in rags, and he turns out to be blind. With some difficulty, and not without threats of beating, they get him to disclose his name: it is Plutus, the god of wealth himself. But how, then, in the name of wonder, does he appear in this wretched plight? He has just escaped, he tells them, from the house of a miser (who is satirised by name, with all the liberty of a satirist to whom actions for libel were unknown), where he has had a miserable time of it. And how, they ask, came he to be blind?
Pl. Jove wrought me this, out of ill-will to men.
For in my younger days I threatened still
I would betake me to the good and wise
And upright only; so he made me blind,
That I should not discern them from the knaves.
Such grudge bears he to worth and honesty.
Chr. Yet surely ’tis the worthy and the honest
Alone who pay him sacrifice?
Pl. I know ’tis so.
Chr. Go to, now, friend: suppose you had your sight
As heretofore—say, wouldst thenceforth avoid
All knaves and rascals?
Pl. Yea, I swear I would.
Chr. And seek the honest?
Pl. Ay, and gladly too,
For ’tis a long time since I saw their faces.
Chr. No marvel—I have eyes, and cannot see them.
Plutus is very unwilling to accompany his new friend home, though Chremylus assures him that he is a man of unusual probity. “All men say that,” is the god’s reply; “but the moment they get hold of me, their probity goes to the winds.” Besides, he is afraid of Jove. Chremylus cries out against him for a coward. Would the sovereignty of Jove be worth three farthings’ purchase, but for him? What do men offer prayer and sacrifice to Jove himself for, but for money? Money is the true ruler, alike of gods and men. “I myself,” puts in Cario, “should not now be another gentleman’s property, as I am, but for the fact of my master here having a little more money than I had.” All arts and handicrafts, all inventions good or evil, have this one source—both master and man (for Cario is very forward in giving his opinion) agree in protesting; while the god listens to what he declares is, to his simpler mind, a new revelation:—
Car. Is’t not your fault the Persian grows so proud?
Chr. Do not men go to Parliament through you?
Car. Who swells the navy estimates, but you?
Chr. Who subsidises foreigners, but you?
Car. For want of you our friend there goes to jail.
Chr. Why are bad novels written, but for you?
Car. That league with Egypt, was it not through you?
Chr. And Lais loves that lout—and all for you!
Car. And our new admiral’s tower—
Chr. (impatiently to Cario). May fall, I trust,
Upon your noisy head!—But in brief, my friend,
Are not all things that are done done for you?
For, good or bad, you are alone the cause.
Ay, and in war, that side is safe to win
Into whose scale you throw the golden weight.
Pl. Am I indeed so potent as all this?
Chr. Yea, by great heaven, and very much more than this,
Since none hath ever had his fill of you:
Of all things else there comes satiety;
We tire of Love—
Car. Of loaves—
Chr. Of music—
Car. Sweetmeats—
Chr. Of honour—
Car. Cheesecakes—
Chr. Valour—
Car. Of dried figs—
Chr. Ambition—
Car. Biscuit—
Chr. High command—
Car. Pea-soup.
Chr. Of you alone is no man filled too full.
Still Plutus follows his guides unwillingly. His experiences as the guest of men have not hitherto been pleasant:—
Pl. If I perchance took lodging with a miser,
He digs me a hole i’ the earth, and buries me;
And if some honest friend shall come to him,
And ask the loan of me, by way of help,
He swears him out he never saw my face.
Or, if I quarter with your man of pleasure,
He wastes me on his dice and courtesans,
And forthwith turns me naked on the street.
Chr. Because you never had the luck, as yet,
To light upon a moderate man—like me.
I love economy, look ye—no man more;
Then again, I know how to spend, in season.
But let’s indoors: I long to introduce
My wife, and only son, whom I do love
Best in this world—next to yourself, I should say.